Dexter To Continue Killing For Two More Seasons

Dexter fans rejoice! Dexter isnít going anywhere anytime soon. Word is, the Showtime serial-killer drama series has been renewed for two more seasons.

Deadline posted the news, stating that after lengthy negotiations, Dexter star Michael C. Hall has reached a new two-year deal with the network to continue on with the series, which is currently in its sixth season. This ensures that there will be a seventh and eighth season for the popular drama. Per Deadline, both seasons will consist of twelve episodes, with the seventh season beginning production in los Angeles next year.

Dexterís ratings have been steadily increasing over the course of the season, earning 1.99 million viewers for last Sunday nightís episode (or 2.61 when you factor in later airings), and averaging 5.12 million viewers per week.

Dexter follows a serial killer disguised as an average man and blood-spatter analyst for the Miami Metro Homicide police. Currently, heís living as a single father and balancing parenthood, work, and killing people. Season 6 has him exploring the subject of religion as another set of serial killers, titled the Doomsday Killer(s) performs ritualistic murders around Miami. Each season of the series tackles some different aspect of Dexterís life and personality. This season is obviously spirituality. Itíll be interesting to see what subjects the next two seasons explore.

Update - It's looking like this could be the beginning of the end of the series. Deadline posted an update on the negotiations, stating that Showtime entertainment president David Nevins said:

"The biggest question was: what is the trajectory of the show creatively? And after speaking with (executive producers) John Goldwyn, Sara Colleton and Scott Buck, it became pretty clear that there was a very clear 3-year trajectory. Once we established that, this became a very simple negotiation, which went down pretty quickly."

From the way Nevins talks about it, it seems like the eighth season will be the last. "Iím not going to say with absolute certainty that this is the end," Nevins told Deadline. "But that is the likely scenario, that the series is moving towards a definite end."

Hopefully this means they have some kind of ending in sight and we'll get to see the show start building toward that over the course of the next two seasons.

To celebrate the news, here are a couple of spoiler images from this Sunday's episode. (Watch clips from the ep here).